Comparing Access to Rare Disease Drugs in Canada vs New Zealand

At the 2019 GARROD Symposium held May 9 – 11, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, John Adams of the Canadian PKU and Allied Disorders and the Best Medicines Coalition presented a poster entitled “Approvals of New Drugs: Canada compared to New Zealand: What Difference do Stricter Price Controls Make for Patient Access?” that he co-authored with Nigel Rawson, PhD of the Eastlake Research Group.

In this video clip, Adams described their study that compared the drugs approved and available in 2 countries – Canada and New Zealand. The latter country was chosen as it has implemented extremely strict price control measures for prescription drugs, including drugs for rare diseases and the authors wanted to determine if such restrictions led to a decrease in patients gaining access to those medications. Some of the data from this poster was previously published in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology